


Parlor Tricks

by la_dissonance



Category: Bandom, The Like
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 13:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/748979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_dissonance/pseuds/la_dissonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starting a band is only half the reason they agree to get together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parlor Tricks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quintenttsy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quintenttsy/gifts).



> Thanks to [identity redacted] for looking this over; any remaining mistakes are my own. I hope you don't mind that this has bonus!Charlotte, quintenttsy, she insisted on sneaking in there.

Z's fingertips are buzzing and numb by the time she puts down her guitar. They played for hours, straight through lunch, pausing to raid the pantry for snacks when it became urgent and then picking their instruments right back up again. Z had been a little nervous when she invited them over — maybe they wouldn't like her songs, or they wouldn't have anything to talk about, or they just wouldn't click despite everything they have in common.

The first ten hours have flown by, though, and they've done nothing but play her songs and talk and it's been so _comfortable_. Being around people who don't know about her is such an effort, in comparison — the constant guessing game of trying to figure out how they see the world and adjusting her own actions so she'll fit in — but with Tennessee and Charlotte she can just _be_.

They run out of steam to physically keep playing well before they're in danger of running out of stuff to play, and it's only when their growling stomachs force them into the kitchen that Z starts to feel a little bit at a loss.

"There's....waffles and frozen pizza," Z says, going through the freezer. "Or we could order the real stuff, my parents left me a credit card to use for emergencies. Or there's juice and yogurt and stuff, we could make smoothies."

"I vote smoothies, I'm too hungry to wait for either kind of pizza," Tennessee says.

Charlotte's going through the cabinets, which Z is glad of, since she'd told them to make themselves at home but wasn't sure if they were really going to take her up on that. "Oh look, you have red velvet cake mix, can we make cake later?"

Z makes a face. "I'm shit at baking."

"Me too." Charlotte sighs and puts the box back.

"I've never tried," Tennessee admits. "But it can't be that hard, right? And anyway, if we mess up, we can always just translate it back into a decent cake."

"We totally could," Z says, and a little thrill goes up her spine. It's going to take a while before she gets used to being able to bring it up so casually; she knows that the whole point is this doesn't have to be a secret between them, but it still _feels_ taboo.

They take turns using the blender, then head out to the deck with their smoothies, and Z feels that thrill again when the topic turns from worst baking disasters ever sustained back to translation.

"First time you ever translated something by accident," Tennessee says, looking expectantly between the two of them.

Charlotte hugs her knees to her chest and balances her smoothie between them. "You already know mine."

"Z doesn't, though," Tennessee points out.

"It's stupid, though," Charlotte warns Z. "We had mixed vegetables with supper one night, you know, the kind from the bag? And I used to hate those when I was little —"

"She still does," Tennessee stage-whispers.

Charlotte ignores her. "—So I translated all of the other vegetables to corn, which I guess made sense because it's the only edible one in there? But I could have gone for, like, mashed potatoes. Or candy, anything. I didn't even notice until my mom saw my plate and yelled at me for playing with my food."

Z gapes. "She saw you change it?"

"No, she thought I had picked out all the other vegetables and left the corn behind," Charlotte laughs. "They still don't know, I got pretty careful after that."

Tennessee pokes Z's knee. "What about you, Z?"

"I don't know if I ever translated anything by accident," Z says.

Charlotte leans forward. "How did you find out, then?"

"I did it on a movie. Like, literally translated it from one language to another." Z doesn't remember what movie it had been — she'd kind of gone on a foreign films binge after her discovery — but still remembers the feeling exactly. Like there was a layer of meaning right underneath what she was hearing, and if she could just untwist the nonsense sounds in her brain, she could get down to the layer that made sense. It had kind of freaked her out when it actually _worked_ , but it hadn't stopped her from trying again.

Tennessee laughs out loud. "That's like me! I never figured out why I was so good at reading crotchet patterns until Charlotte told me about her thing with the corn. Then we started experimenting."

They share a look and Z feels a little pang of the worry she'd had when she first invited them over — none of them have other friends, yeah, but Tenn and Charlotte already have each other. They don't need her the way she needs them.

"Did you do a lot of crotcheting when you were a kid?" Z can't make the worry go away, but she can and will bluff past it like it's not even there.

"I always _wanted_ to. My grandma on my dad's side did a lot of crotchet, and I would always beg her to teach me. I was terrible at it, though, until I looked in her pattern books, but then we figured out that that's not how regular people read patterns, so I felt weird about it and started translating percussion sheet music instead."

"And no one thought it was weird that you'd be magically good at drums because of your dad," Z fills in, and Tennessee nods.

"Are we doing firsts now? My turn, I've got one," Charlotte says. "First boy you ever kissed."

" _Charlotte_ ," Tennessee admonishes.

"Fine, or girl." Charlotte waves her hand. "She's been like this ever since she joined the GSA."

"Until last year our school didn't even have one," Tennessee says. "It was terrible."

Z nods. It makes sense if their school is as conservative as they've told her it is. "Do you have anyone else who can translate at your school?"

Tennessee shakes her head; Charlotte frowns and says, "Not any that we know of. Like, I'm pretty sure half the staff are still convinced it's not a real thing."

Z raises her eyebrows in bewilderment. Sure, no one wants to come out as being able to translate because you might be so good at it that the government's probably going to scoop you up and put you to work disarming enemy nukes or something, but you can't not know it's a thing. Everyone's seen the people who go and do stunts on national television for publicity by now, there's like, no way to ignore it.

"What about you, is anyone out at your school?"

"We have one — Jen Wheeler, super popular. Apparently she did something at a party one time, but everyone already worshiped her anyway and I wasn't at the party, so." Z shrugs and slurps at her smoothie.

"Ugh," Tennessee groans.

"Right? I mean, who knows if she's actually any good at translating, but either way she ruined it for the rest of us. Now anyone else who comes forward is just a copycat."

"High school fucking sucks," Charlotte says.

"Imagine once we get into the real world, I bet no one will get hung up on if we can turn a basketball into a baseball or whatever."

"Can you?" For all the time Z's spent lurking secret messageboards where translators discuss their craft, she's never actually _seen_ someone else do it.

Tennessee hides her face in her hands. "I don't think I've ever actually had to! You want to see me translate a bobby pin into a drumstick though? I do that all the time."

"Ooo, yes please." Z scoots closer.

It's kind of disorienting to watch someone else do it. Z can see the steps Tennessee's going through — metal to wood, bent to straight, small to large, a fiddly bit at the end where she makes it from a stick into a drumstick — but she can't feel it at all, has no sense of how Tennessee found the essence of _drumstick_ hiding inside the essence of the bobby pin and translated one into the other. It's disorienting to watch; Z's eyes keep sliding away against her will as if they refuse to participate in such nonsense.

Tennessee grins when she finishes and hands Z the drumstick to inspect. Z turns it over in her hands, but it just feels like an ordinary object. She can't feel the path it took any more than she could see it while Tennessee was translating.

"It's weird, seeing it from the outside," she says, and hands the drumstick back.

"You get used to it after a while." Tennessee winks.

"Do it again," Z says, and Tennessee obliges, tugging a second bobby pin out of the hair behind her ear and working it in her hands quickly, assuredly, until all the pin is gone and only drumstick remains. Z has to shake her head to clear the vertigo when Tennessee's done.

"It takes time," Charlotte offers. "But stick around long enough and it starts being less of a mindfuck, you'll see."

Z grins wide, then covers her mouth with her hand.

"Should we go back and play more?" Z thinks they've definitely proven they can work together as a band, but they'd left off in the middle of debating whether they should cover a Lesley Gore song or one by The Supremes next, and Z could happily cover 60's girl groups all night.

"You'll have to go on without me," Tennessee says. "I think my arms will fall off if I drum anymore."

"Tomorrow," Charlotte says, and Z nods in agreement.

"We could watch a movie. Or like, braid each other's hair. It could be like a sleepover party."

"Technically it already is a sleepover," Charlotte says. "I mean, you're letting us spend the night here, right?"

"Right, but I mean a _real_ sleepover, like the ones girls in Disney channel shows have. I never got to have one of those before."

"Me either!" Tennessee says. Z must give her a look, because she clarifies, "It's not a party with just two people, that's just hanging out."

"Then I officially declare this a party," Z says.

Tennessee giggles, and Z grins. She doesn't bother to hide it this time. The living room is covered in instruments and half-empty potato chip bags and most of the contents of two backpacks, so they all agree it makes more sense to take the movies and popcorn up to the big TV in Z's parents' room.

"We'd just have to set up all our instruments again tomorrow, anyway," Charlotte points out.

"Hush with your practicality, we're being _rebels_ ," Z says.

They watch one movie and head back down to the kitchen when Charlotte reminds them of their cake plans, but don't end up baking in the end; they get punch-drunk on Diet Coke and decide it would be fun to see if they could translate a finished cake directly from the box of mix. The result is dry and flat and becomes indelibly fused with the pan, which in retrospect they all agree was an unnecessary component. They bury the abomination in the back garden and later Z explains the loss of the pan by telling her mother that the cake burnt. She gets a lecture on elbow grease and not throwing perfectly good things away, and she rolls her eyes through the entire thing.

It's nearly too late for another movie after the cake disaster, but too late is a very relative concept in the middle of a sleepover party. Z gets her nail polish from her room, and they give each other matching manicures and pedicures while Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion plays in the background. It goes slowly, since Z only owns two bottles of nail polish in total. Translating from one color to another is easy once you get the hang of it, there had never been any point in buying more colors once Z found a formula she liked.

"I'll do yours after mine dry a bit," Tennessee says, slouching down to lean against Z's leg with her hands carefully folded over her stomach.

"Okay." Z herself is propped up on a stack of pillows with her legs stretched out in front of her so Charlotte can paint her toenails. It's only a matter of time before they get so tangled up that all their manicures are ruined anyway, but it's a nice thought in the meantime.

Tennessee takes great care with Z's nails and then curls up next to her, yawning widely. Z nods off while she's waiting for them to dry, and when she drifts awake again, the credits are rolling and Charlotte's trying to reach the TV to take the video out without getting out of bed.

"You'll fall off," Tennessee says, and grabs one of Charlotte's ankles. "Help, Z, she's getting away."

Z holds onto Charlotte's other ankle while Charlotte giggles and squirms. "Reel me out a little more, I can almost reach!"

After some gymnastics and a bit of cheating, they collapse back onto the bed in a pile, Charlotte holding her prize victoriously over her head.

"It's okay if we sleep here, right? I don't think I ever want to move again." Tennessee's got her face mashed into Z's stomach, but she catches the gist of it.

"Yeah, totally," Z says. It's nice like this, all cuddled up like they've known each other forever. She doesn't want to move either.

Charlotte rolls herself up in one side of the comforter and promptly falls asleep, leaving Z and Tennessee to climb over each other to get under the blankets. It's not a small bed, but with all three of them there's not a lot of extra space to go around. Z and Tennessee end up sharing the same pillow, curled toward each other like cats in a sunbeam.

"Our band's going to take over the world," Tennessee whispers, solemnly.

"When we tour Europe, you're going to have to teach us all about all the British things."

"Absolutely."

"How did she fall asleep so fast? I'm not tired at all anymore."

The bed shakes a tiny bit as Tennessee giggles, silently. "Me either, anymore. We should probably stop talking."

"Yeah, probably. Goodnight."

"Night."

The silence lasts a few minutes, but Z can't fake her way back to sleepiness, and she can tell by Tenn's breathing that she's not asleep yet either.

"Tennessee?"

"Mm?"

"What should we _call_ our band?"

"Oh, fuck." Tennessee laughs softly.

"Has a certain ring to it," Z allows.

"No, honestly I've no idea."

"Maybe if we play together long enough something will just...come to us."

"I don't think that's how it works," Tennessee says, and Z groans.

"We'll think of something," Tennessee says.

"I hope so," Z says. The silence lasts longer this time, until Tennessee says, "I should never have drank so much Coke."

Z buries a laugh in the pillow. "Shh, we're supposed to be sleeping."

Tennessee sighs and rolls over onto her back. "Night."

"Night," Z whispers back, and scoots over until she's resting her head on Tennessee's shoulder instead of the pillow. Tennessee sighs again, ruffling Z's hair, and as her breathing slowly evens out, Z thinks that if she could have reached into the fabric of the universe and arranged things to her exact liking, it wouldn't have come out any different than this right now.


End file.
